Archived:Developing a MVC Component/Adding a menu type to the site part

This page has been archived. This page contains information for an unsupported Joomla! version or is no longer relevant. It exists only as a historical reference, it will not be improved and its content may be incomplete and/or contain broken links.

Articles in this Series

1. Introduction
2. Developing a Basic Component
3. Adding a view to the site part
4. Adding a menu type to the site part
5. Adding a model to the site part
6. Adding a variable request in the menu type
7. Using the database
8. Basic backend
9. Adding language management
10. Adding backend actions
11. Adding decorations to the backend
12. Adding verifications
13. Adding categories
14. Adding configuration
15. Adding ACL
16. Adding an install/uninstall/update script file
17. Using the language filter facility
18. Adding an update server
19. Example of a Frontend Update Function
20. Example of Menu Parameters & Stylesheets

Introduction

This tutorial is part of the Developing a Model-View-Controller (MVC) Component for Joomla!2.5 tutorial. You are encouraged to read the previous parts of the tutorial before reading this.

Abstract

Generally speaking, this article describes how to get a link on your joomla page to open a specific page of your component. This gets simply done by adding an xml file to your specific page into your view folder.

E.g.

site/views/helloworld/tmpl/

Contains your view page default.php that we want to open.

A file default.xml is placed next to this file with some xml. This makes joomla able to recognize the view file default.php as a menu item.

Adding a menu item type

In the Joomla framework, components are executed using menu items. If you go in the menu manager of your Joomla installation a HelloWorld menu item type does not yet exist. Adding this functionality is easy in Joomla. Simply put a site/views/helloworld/tmpl/default.xml file containing:

site/views/helloworld/tmpl/default.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<metadata>
	<layout title="COM_HELLOWORLD_HELLOWORLD_VIEW_DEFAULT_TITLE">
		<message>
			<![CDATA[COM_HELLOWORLD_HELLOWORLD_VIEW_DEFAULT_DESC]]>
		</message>
	</layout>
</metadata>

For the moment the strings won't be translated in the administrator interface. We will see in a later article how translation is performed.

Also modify your helloworld.xml file to indicate a new version:

helloworld.xml

<extension type="component" version="2.5.0" method="upgrade">

	<name>Hello World!</name>
	<!-- The following elements are optional and free of formatting constraints -->
	<creationDate>November 2009</creationDate>
	<author>John Doe</author>
	<authorEmail>john.doe@example.org</authorEmail>
	<authorUrl>http://www.example.org</authorUrl>
	<copyright>Copyright Info</copyright>
	<license>License Info</license>
	<!--  The version string is recorded in the components table -->
	<version>0.0.3</version>
	<!-- The description is optional and defaults to the name -->
	<description>Description of the Hello World component ...</description>

	<update> <!-- Runs on update; New in 2.5 -->
		<schemas>
			<schemapath type="mysql">sql/updates/mysql</schemapath>
		</schemas>
	</update>

	<!-- Site Main File Copy Section -->
	<!-- Note the folder attribute: This attribute describes the folder
		to copy FROM in the package to install therefore files copied
		in this section are copied from /site/ in the package -->
	<files folder="site">
		<filename>index.html</filename>
		<filename>helloworld.php</filename>
		<filename>controller.php</filename>
		<folder>views</folder>
	</files>

	<administration>
		<!-- Administration Menu Section -->
		<menu>Hello World!</menu>
		<!-- Administration Main File Copy Section -->
		<!-- Note the folder attribute: This attribute describes the folder
			to copy FROM in the package to install therefore files copied
			in this section are copied from /admin/ in the package -->
		<files folder="admin">
			<!-- Admin Main File Copy Section -->
			<filename>index.html</filename>
			<filename>helloworld.php</filename>
			<!-- SQL files section -->
			<folder>sql</folder>
		</files>
	</administration>

</extension>

Packaging the component

Content of your code directory

• helloworld.xml
• site/index.html
• site/helloworld.php
• site/controller.php
• site/views/index.html
• site/views/helloworld/index.html
• site/views/helloworld/view.html.php
• site/views/helloworld/tmpl/index.html
• site/views/helloworld/tmpl/default.xml
• site/views/helloworld/tmpl/default.php
• admin/index.html
• admin/helloworld.php
• admin/sql/index.html
• admin/sql/updates/index.html
• admin/sql/updates/mysql/index.html
• admin/sql/updates/mysql/0.0.1.sql

Selecting the Menu Item Type

Create a compressed file of this directory or directly download the archive and install it using the extension manager of Joomla. You can add a menu item of this component using the menu manager in the backend. To do so select "Add New Menu Item" from the one of the menus in the "Menus" menu; then you can select COM_HELLOWORLD_HELLOWORLD_VIEW_DEFAULT_TITLE for Menu Item Type. Once selected you can see the Link information is populated with the URL for the view.

Navigate

Prev: Adding a view to the site part Next: Adding a model to the site part

Contributors

• Christophe Demko
• Ozgur Aksu
• Lukas Meier